[Cryptography] IBM looking at adopting bitcoin technology for major currencies

[John Levine]

>> By the time you do that, they might as well also do what Phill's
>> notaries do, and it's starting to look a lot like an ordinary digital
>> currency where the transactions are handled by the issuing bank. ...

>I think that the "who has control of the ledger" question is a serious
>hot potato when central banks deal with each other.  This isn't about
>their clients and businesses, this is about the fact that they don't
>trust each other and want an open ledger that no single one of them, nor
>any of the governments they work with/for, can control.

Every modern currency of any importance is issued by a single bank.
Euros come from the ECB, dollars come from the Fed, pounds come from
the Bank of England, and so forth.  There's no question who runs which
ledger.  They certainly have policy differences, but that's not a
trust issue except perhaps for Russia who nobody trusts these days.

Also, the Federal Reserve Bank of NY has a vault which currently
contains 6700 tons of gold that belongs to governments and
international organizations around the world.  It was originally there
for safekeeping, but now it's more so that if country or organization
A wants to pay B in gold (it still happens now and then), they just
tell the Fed who moves the bars from A's cage to B's.  This is not
the behavior of entities that don't trust each other.

http://www.ny.frb.org/aboutthefed/goldvault.html

R's,
John

PS: Also consider the blockchain attacks we all know about that would
require an implausibly large effort.  Then consider the resources that
a large nation state might apply to the problem.